New Linux-based Sun ONE Grid Engine

Sun said the new Grid technology expands the availability of its Grid computing solution for Linux-based enterprise Grids and enables customers to better manage the utilization of enterprise-wide compute resources and improve the return on those IT assets. A key element of Sun's long-term strategy for Sun ONE Grid Engine software is to Grid-enable applications within the Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) platform, the company said. The new version of Grid software is also supported on Sun's new entry-level server, the Sun LX50.
Sun Microsystems announced a new Linux version of Sun ONE Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition 5.3 software.

Sun said its vision for Grid computing evolves in three stages. The freeware Sun ONE Grid Engine provides for the first phase of departmental cluster Grids. Sun ONE Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition 5.3 software builds on the first stage and enables enterprise-wide Grids, which can manage thousands of nodes across the organization. The third stage is global Grids, "an area of great focus for Sun in its ongoing development of products and industry relationships, and its strong support of Grid computing standards work," Sun said. "At this level, Sun ONE Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition software provides interfaces to global Grid technologies like Avaki and Globus."

"Expanding access to Grid technologies and spurring the adoption of Grid computing across heterogeneous environments is key to Sun's Grid computing strategy," Sun Director of Grid Computing Wolfgang Gentzsch said in a statement. "Our Sun Grid Engine software family and the Grid Engine Open Source Project have been enormously successful in heterogeneous environments. And as our customers' needs grow to enterprise-level Grids, Sun's Grid computing portfolio can easily scale with them, providing the most robust solution on the market."

Sun ONE Grid Engine software, available as a free download at www.sun.com/grid, has been available for the Linux platform since January 2001 and comprises 25% of the Sun-based Grids deployed today, according to a market study conducted by Walker Information. The research also shows an additional 25% of those deployments are mixed environments supported by the Linux platform and Solaris Operating Environment. Sun's Grid technology has also been available in open source via the Grid Engine Project (http://gridengine.sunsource.net) and is also being distributed with SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional Edition.

Enterprise Edition 5.3 for Linux is expected to be available by the end of year. As with Sun ONE Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition 5.3 software for the Solaris OE, new software license fees range from $20,000 U.S. list price for up to 50 CPUs to $80,000 for up to 2,000 CPUs. Sun Enterprise Services are also available to provide full product support, training and installation.